Conservatives are killing it in QP. Does anyone care?

South Surrey-White Rock Conservative byelection candidate Kerry-Lynne Findlay, front, sits with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer during an interview at a cafe, while campaigning in Surrey, B.C., on Monday December 4, 2017. Findlay lost to Liberal candidate Gordie Hogg. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Citizens in three federal ridings — in British Columbia, Newfoundland and the Greater Toronto Area — apparently have not been getting the memos about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s political troubles in Parliament this fall.

Trudeau’s Liberals won three out of four seats up for grabs in Monday’s byelections, including a seat in Surrey, B.C. that used to belong to the Conservatives. This latest net seat gain comes on the heels of a similar win in Lac-St.-Jean less than two months ago, which also represented a net loss for the Conservatives.

So when the Commons reconvenes late in January after the long holiday break, Trudeau will get to walk three new MPs up the aisle to meet the Speaker: Gordie Hogg from South Surrey-White Rock, Churence Rogers from Bonavista-Burin-Trinity and Jean Yip, keeping the Scarborough-Agincourt seat in the family after the death of her husband — the former MP for the riding, Arnold Chan.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer will only be doing one walk down the aisle — with Rosemarie Falk, who kept the Battlefords-Lloydminister seat for her party on Monday night, as expected, after the resignation of former agriculture minister Gerry Ritz.

This is all going to be pitched as good news for the ruling Liberals and bad news for the Conservatives and New Democrats, whose shiny new leaders, Scheer and Jagmeet Singh, are not giving their parties much-desired momentum on the ground.

Frankly, though, reactions should be restrained all around.

Political die-hards like to present byelections as interim report cards on parties’ and leaders’ fortunes. But increasingly, it seems to me that byelections offer an insight into the widening gap between the politics of the parliamentary precinct — let’s call it Wellington St. — and main-street Canada.

Ever since last summer, the political headlines have been filled with bad news for Trudeau. Between ill-considered tax proposals and outrage over the wealth and assets of Finance Minister Bill Morneau, it would be easy to conclude that the Liberal brand is — as the political marketers like to say — losing its lustre.

If the outcome of the 2015 election had turned on what happened in QP, Trudeau would not be prime minister today.

Maybe not so much, though. Canadians in B.C., Quebec, Newfoundland and Scarborough were so worked up about these political controversies that they’re sending four Liberal MPs to Ottawa this fall — two of them from ridings that haven’t elected Liberals in decades.

Someone who caught on to this disconnect early in his leadership was Justin Trudeau, of course. Shortly after Trudeau decided to seek the Liberal leadership in the fall of 2012, he got out of Ottawa and spent as little campaign time in the Commons as possible.

While all the pundits were praising NDP Leader Tom Mulcair for his dazzling daily takedowns of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the Commons, something odd was happening. Liberals were out winning byelections — taking a seat away from the Conservatives in Labrador, one from the NDP in the heart of Toronto (Olivia Chow’s old seat, no less) and generally improving their strength on the ground.

Liberal data geeks were using the by-elections from 2013-2015 to test the party’s new skills at voter analytics. Trudeau would draw the crowds at events and the numbers folks would turn the audiences into pools of contact information for future campaigning. The trick was in finding new voters — people who had never cast a ballot before. As we saw, these new voters may have clinched the Liberals’ victories for them.

Along with voting before 2015, you know what else the people in this Liberal-targeted constituency haven’t done? They haven’t watched question period. They don’t really follow politics.

If the outcome of the 2015 election had turned on what happened in QP, Trudeau would not be prime minister today.

There is a possible silver lining here for Singh, who has decided (up to now, at least) to concentrate on building his profile outside the House of Commons, rather than seeking a seat at the first opportunity. That strategy didn’t pay off in Monday night’s byelections; the New Democrats’ share of the vote declined from 2015 levels in all four ridings.

But turnout wasn’t all that great either, at least judging by preliminary election night figures from Elections Canada. Leaving out people who registered to vote on byelection day, the turnout ranged from around 21 per cent in Newfoundland to nearly 40 per cent in B.C.

And here’s where Trudeau may want once again to curb his enthusiasm about these byelection results. Back when he was campaigning — first for the Liberal leadership and then for the prime minister’s job — Trudeau said he was going to make it his mission to reconnect Canadians with politics and government. He spoke quite passionately about what a shame it was that people knew so little of what was going on in Ottawa — that citizens were so out of touch with what their MPs were doing on Parliament Hill.

Funny how things turn out. On Monday night, Trudeau was probably relieved that Ottawa politics — all the uproar over ethics and ministerial gaffes — is so distant from the lives of people voting in those four federal ridings.
Main St. Canada still has very little to do with what’s happening on Wellington St. For now, Trudeau is probably happy about that.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

More from iPolitics

18 comments on “Conservatives are killing it in QP. Does anyone care?”

When I was young I subscribed to Hansard, the only way at the time to follow Question Period. I learned a lot about Canada because MPs would bring up questions related to the specific concerns of their constituents. Issues were dealt with by responsible elected representatives who put Canadians ahead of partisan politics. Now QP has evolved into a game of trying to discredit the government by making claims that would be libellous outside the protection of the house. The Conservatives are killing it all right. They are killing the true purpose of Question Period and failing their constituents. When will they start to care more about us than themselves?

Totally agree with Phil King and Michelle K. Why can’t there be a thumbs up on this board.

Commenter Don Watson’s post illustrates what happens to public opinion in regards to our democracy when the media engages in immature and unfair criticism of an excellent government. Citizens get cynical about everything and just drop out. This media garbage has to stop!

Semi-insightful analysis. You would be better served looking at individual riding results though.
White Rock: big anti-Harper swing in 2015 knocks the Tory vote down to low 30 percent; Findlay gets it back up to 42%.
Agincourt: Tory vote has climbed in every vote since 2011. 40% was an improvement on their result in the 2015 Justin wave.

Justin wins these seats, and probably wins in 2019, by unifying the lefty vote because Jagmeet is catastrophic. On this form, the NDP will be down at Green Party vote levels like they were in the Chretien era. Justin is also sweeping former Tory and NDP country in Quebec.

In the meantime, Scheer isn’t a bust. The two suburban results suggest that in parts of the country with a lot of wealth and entrepreneurs, the Tories have traction due to Morneau’s tax fiasco.

The cesspool known as government no longer holds any surprises for most folks who follow the gamesmanship. Because all the turds stink, it is a matter of being able to stomach the 1 with the least stench.

There are no winners in a pretend democracy where the best dressed liar wins the day. Apathy and inertia remain the key ingredients of success in the political arena.

Why would anyone care what goes on there?
During the Harper Government the orchestrated “job killing carbon tax” chants dishonoured parliament and destroyed the value of members statements.
Now in Opposition they’ve turned it into a clown show wasting weeks of time on pointless quickly forgotten faux scandals.
It’s beome so screamingly over the top that the media, I would say, is no longer able to recognize a real scandal if one ever occurred.

Perhaps the by-elections are telling us people agree with those National Post/Financial Post/Toronto Star/Walrus writers who were saying, last week, Scheer was making a mistake attacking Morneau, to the point of character assassination, with points that had very little backing in fact. We had enough of that with Harper and prefer not to go there again.

I used to watch Question Period several times a week. Now I rarely even bother except to confirm that the whole thing is still completely pointless and embarassing.

The opposition is “killing it” is right… except that it doesn’t mean what Delacourt seems to think. Even a first year university student can recognize the leading questions, loaded statments, circular arguments etc. Why would anyone expect the government to treat those questions seriously?

Canadians have long given up on the whole thing and the cynicism is represents.

And THAT’s why Trudeau’s “high talk” and “sunny ways” sells so well. At least someone is saying the right things, even if the cynics want to argue that they’re just platitudes.

This Lie bral gov’t are liars and I don’t appreciate it!!! They keep blaming the Cons. It’s time to grow up PM Trudeau. We as Canadians are being Taxed to death and I would like the gov’t to get out of my life….we need less gov’t. VOTE THE LIE BRALS OUT IN 2019!!!

The title of your article is not backed up by substance. Killing it? Really? By claiming falsely that the new tax measures will destroy small business, by accusing the Finance Minister of insider trading based on the fact that his company sold shares prior to the introduction of a tax bill that everyone knew the substance of? That’s hardly killing it, more like faking it. Voters are responding to real economic growth, to Canada’s growing prestige in the eyes of the world, and other successes of the Liberal government, rather than to false accusations in the house that, as the Finance Minister said, would be subject to libel laws outside of the house.

We as Canadian are riding on the coat tails of the USA, just wait until next year when all the businesses that have decided to go to the states because of better tax rates. Our economy is slowing down and the reason the unemployment numbers look good is because anyone that has been out of work for over 6 months is not looking for work anymore so they are not counted in the unemployment numbers. So our unemployment number are double to what they are. And as for the employment number up right now is because of Christmas. Wait until January and the following months. This gov’t is using the Carbon Tax because they dare not put up the GST. A TAX ON A TAX DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS YET…GET THE GOV’T OUT OF MY LIFE!!!! VOTE THE LIE BRALS OUT IN 2019!!!

Comments are closed.

X

Join the conversation. It gets feisty!

Author

Susan Delacourt is one of Canada's best-known political journalists. Over her long career she has worked at some of the top newsrooms in the country, from the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail to the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post. She is a frequent political panelist on CBC Radio and CTV. Author of four books, her latest — Shopping For Votes — was a finalist for the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Canadian non-fiction in 2014. She teaches classes in journalism and political communication at Carleton University.